


In My (Un)Life

by Trillian_Astra



Category: Being Human (UK), Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Modern AU, Multi, Supernatural AU - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-11-28 23:42:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/680210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trillian_Astra/pseuds/Trillian_Astra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eponine Thenardier and Cosette Fauchelevent are roommates, and they've been roommates for long enough to get used to each other's quirks. Which is handy, because Eponine is a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old vampire who's gone on the wagon, and Cosette is a ghost obsessed with interior decorating. But they got along all right, staying under the radar and keeping to themselves.</p><p>And then they move to a new town, where it becomes apparent that staying under the radar might be a little more difficult than they'd hoped, given that there happens to be a werewolf pack in town.</p><p>(a Les Miserables/Being human fusion. Les Mis characters, Being Human's world.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“So, it’s just you?” the estate agent said. “I’m sorry, I don’t get a lot of single people looking at three-bedroom houses…”

Eponine shrugged, and was glad that her eyes were hidden by her dark glasses. “It’s fine… actually I have a room-mate, she’s out of the country right now, so I’m stuck house-hunting by myself.”

“Oh. Of course.” The estate agent’s smile was bright, but not entirely convincing.

~~~

“Well, here we are. Home sweet home,” Eponine said as she unlocked the door of their new house. Cosette brushed past her and sniffed. “It’s got a lot of… _character_ …”

“You hate it, don’t you?”

“I didn’t say that! It just needs a little tidying up, that’s all,” Cosette said brightly.

Eponine shuddered. The last time one of their houses had needed “tidying up”, they had spent the next two months surrounded by paint samples, carpet books and endless furniture catalogues.

“I am not going to IKEA for you, not again. Not after last time.”

“How do you feel about B&Q?”

Eponine threw a cushion at her head, or where her head would have been if she hadn’t zapped out of the way.

~~~

Houses required rent, which meant money, which meant getting a job. As the room-mate who was actually visible to humans (barring mirror use, obviously), that was always Eponine’s task. She always took low-level jobs, usually cleaning or working in a late-night fast food restaurant. This time, she was looking at the ads in the job centre window when something caught her eye – an ad for hospital porters. Low-level, no qualifications or detailed references required. Probably a high turnover, too. In other words, exactly what she was looking for.

The man behind the desk in the job centre looked askance at her request for an application for the hospital job. She set her mouth into a thin smile and tried not to think about ripping the smug grin off his face with her teeth.

~~~

Portering, or whatever the word was, turned out to be quite enjoyable, as long as you didn’t mind patients grumbling at you all the time and doctors treating you like part of the furniture. Otherwise it was just wheeling people from one place to another, mopping the floors and dealing with the laundry.  
There was a lot of laundry.

~~~

She’d been heading for the staff room for her break when she ran into him. Initially she thought he was just another junior doctor, he had the same slightly harried look that they all did. Then she caught his scent. It wasn’t a human scent, or a vampire scent either.

She realised that he’d noticed she was staring at him.

“Uh, hello,” he said. “Do I know you?”

“Pretty sure you don’t.”

His nose wrinkled for a fraction of a moment, and realisation dawned in his eyes. “We need to talk. Somewhere private… come on, we’ll go for a walk.”

Eponine looked at him for a moment, then nodded and followed him in the direction of the gardens outside.

When they were alone, she said, “So…”

“I’m Joly, by the way. You are?”

She blinked. This was not what she’d expected. “Eponine. You are a…”

“A werewolf?” he said quietly. “For three years now. And you, you’re a…”

“…much older woman?” She grinned. “Hundred and fifty years, give or take a few. You’re bold for a wolf. Normally they don’t just up and introduce themselves.”

“You’ve met werewolves before, then?”

“Now and again. Got along with some of them, some… not so much,” she said with a wry smile.

“I’ve never met a vampire before.”

“Hope I didn’t disappoint.”

“It’s not the place you’d expect to find… someone like you, a hospital.”

“And a werewolf doctor is what you _would_ expect?”

“Fair point,” he said with a smile.

“So are there any more of your lot around?”

“A few. Kind of a… pack, actually.”

“Oh,” she said. A lone werewolf in town would have been fine. A whole pack… that suggested that this town had far more of a supernatural community than she had thought. She started wondering if they’d made the wrong decision coming here.

“It’s all right, though, we’re not a typical pack. We have the woods to run around In, when we need them. And we have strict rules. Enj is very particular about that.”

Eponine frowned. “Enj?”

Joly smiled. “He doesn’t like being called that. It’s Enjolras really. He’s our Alpha.”

“He sounds like fun.”

“Uh… yeah. So, uh… I guess you’re not the typical vampire, then?”

“I live with a ghost and I don’t feed on people, so yeah, I guess I’m not.”

“You don’t…” he looked at her questioningly.

“Blood banks,” she said quickly. “You get used to it.”

~~~

“ _Werewolves_?” Cosette said incredulously.

“Yeah. I mean, I only met one. He seemed cool, at least compared to most of the ones I’ve met before.”

“I thought we were supposed to be staying away from other… different people.”

“It’ll be fine, Cos. Could you trust me on this one?”

Cosette looked thoughtful. “I want to meet them,” she said. “They’re werewolves, so they’ll be able to see me. So I want you to introduce me.”

“Um…”

Cosette glared at her.

“OK, I’ll ask Joly. He can ask the Alpha.”

Cosette squealed. “Yay! I do miss meeting new people… and oh, maybe they can help me with the decorating! This is _perfect_!”

~~~

Eponine took out her phone to text Joly. _I have an excitable ghost in the house who wants to meet you guys. Any chance you could talk to your Alpha? E._  
Mere seconds later the reply came. _Personally can’t wait, but will talk to our beta. he knows how to get enj to agree to stuff. J._

~~~

“You did _what_?”

“We were just talking! And she seems cool!”

“She’s a _vampire_ , we’re supposed to be keeping away from vampires! I distinctly remember that being part of the rules, Joly.”

“She works at the hospital, it’s a bit hard to avoid going there… oh, no…” Joly said.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have taken that job in the first place, like I suggested.”

Before Joly could say anything, Combeferre put an arm around their Alpha’s shoulders. “Look, as far as I can tell, Joly’s done nothing wrong. And I keep telling you, isolating ourselves from the rest of the… community is only going to lead to bad things for us later. It’s one ghost and one apparently unconventional vampire, what harm can they do?”

“Hmph… what was this girl’s name?”

“Eponine, she said.”

Grantaire opened his eyes and looked about blearily. “Did someone say ‘Eponine’?”

“Do you… know someone named Eponine?” Courfeyrac asked.

“Met a vampire called Eponine a few years back. Last name started with a T, french sounding…” he thought for a moment, “Thenardier! That’s it, Eponine Thenardier. Her whatsit, um, sire had this gang, they were _running_ the Parisian underworld. ‘Ponine’s alright though, she’s kind of the white sheep of the family.” He frowned. “If that makes sense…”

“See?” Joly said, “She’s one of the good ones!”

“ _Good_ vampires are a scarce breed, though. And that goodness is always a little too fragile for me.”

“So we take precautions,” Combeferre said gently. “We know what we need. We make the necessary preparations, meet these two, and if it goes wrong we do what we have to.”

Enjolras nodded brusquely. “All right. One meeting. We’ll see how this goes.”

~~~

“Help! Someone help me!”

Cosette peered out of the window, wondering who could be shouting so late at night. She saw a young man standing in the middle of the street, looking as though he had recently been beaten up, and badly.

“ ‘Ponine!”

“ _What_ , Cos, it’s the middle of the night?” Eponine called back from her room.

“There’s a young man outside, I think he’s hurt.”

“So zap outside and check!”

“I… he’s probably mortal, he won’t be able to see me. You go and talk to him.”

A moment later, Eponine emerged from her room. “We are going to have a serious talk about your issues with going outside,” she said.

Once downstairs, she opened the front door. “Hey, mister! You all right?”

The young man – tall, skinny, and a face covered in freckles – looked towards her. “Oh thank god,” he said, “I was beginning to think no-one was going to help.”

“It’s the middle of the night, they’re all asleep,” she said. “I’m a bit of an insomniac, luckily for you.”

“Well.. thanks anyway…”

“What happened, then?”

“I got mugged, they took everything… my bag, my money, my car keys...”

Eponine looked at his face, and his painfully earnest expression, and sighed. “Fine. You can stay at mine for tonight. But just tonight, got that?”

“I’ll go straight to the police in the morning.”

He followed her over to the door and they went inside. As he stepped he looked around and –

“ _Oh_ ,” he breathed. 

Eponine looked to see what he could be looking at, but the only possibility was… Cosette, who was standing on the stairs in her white dress, and who was looking right back at him.

“Hello,” Cosette murmured.

Eponine rolled her eyes. “Right, you two… mate, this is my room-mate, Cosette… Cos, this is… wait, what is your name?”

“Marius,” he said, without taking his eyes away from Cosette.

“Great. Now, Cos, get back to your room,” she said shortly before Cosette vanished. “And Marius, the bathroom is this way, so you can clean up, and after that the couch is all yours.”

“Um. OK. Thanks…”

“The name’s Eponine.”

“Thanks, Eponine. Who… How did your room-mate vanish like that?”

Eponine frowned. “You…” she paused, and realised that he smelt just the same as Joly had. “You don’t know?”

“Would I ask if I did?”

“I… look, get some sleep, mate. We can untangle this in the morning.”

Marius stood there, confused. “Why – I don’t understand why you’re being so nice to me?”

She grinned. “Oh, I’m not _nice_. I’m decent… this is just your basic human decency, same as anyone else would get. Because, and if I’m wrong then I’m really sorry, I’d guess that you haven’t experienced that lately.”

He looked at her for what felt like a very long moment. “You’re not… _human_ , are you?”

“I’m as human as you are, kid.” She said with a smirk, expecting more confusion. Then he burst into tears.

“I… was not expecting that,” she said quietly. “OK, what now?”

“I… I can’t…”

She dragged him into the front room and made him sit down on the couch, then perched opposite him on the coffee table.

Then she let her eyes go black, just for a moment. “Listen up, OK? You’re a werewolf, I can smell it all over you. From the look of you I’d say you turned very, very recently indeed. Have you even changed yet?”

“Is.. is that what it’s called? I think so. It… it hurt, so much…” He wiped the tears from his eyes and looked at her. “I was… attacked… three months ago. The doctors said it must have been a wild dog or something. But it wasn’t, was it?”

“ ‘fraid not…”

“My senses are better, I’m stronger… I’m really a, a werewolf? I always thought they were just stories. And… some people don’t smell like people. You don’t smell like people… what are you, then?”

“Vampire. Have been for a while now, so I’m used to it.”

“And… your room-mate? What about her?”

“Oh, Cos is a ghost. We’ve been together for.. oh, twenty years now…”

“You’re… together?”

She laughed. “Oh, not like that. We’re friends. Mostly. We figured it was better to live with someone else than to carry on alone.”


	2. Chapter 2

Eponine woke up to the unique experience of a ghost bouncing up and down on her bed. She responded, quite reasonably she thought, by throwing a pillow at said ghost.

It didn’t connect, of course, but at least it got Cosette to stop bouncing.

“ ‘Ponine, wake up,  we’re meeting _them_ today!”

“I know, Cos, but not _right now_ , understand? And can you please keep it  down?”

“OK,” she said dejectedly. “I’ll go and make some  tea, then. Shall I make some for Marius, too?”

“Marius?”

“The young man sleeping on the couch...” Cosette prompted.

Eponine sat straight up. “ _Marius._ ”

“What’s up with him, anyway?”

“Oh, he’s a werewolf. A really new one, I don’t think anyone’s ever told him about…” she waved a hand around vaguely, “people like us.”

“We  could bring him with us! When we meet the pack…”

Eponine considered that. It wasn’t actually a _bad_ idea, and certainly they’d be better equipped to handle a newly-turned werewolf than she was. “I’ll talk to him about it.”

Cosette smiled brightly and zapped downstairs. Eponine heard her singing to herself, sighed, and got out of bed.

~~~

“Hey,” she said when she saw that their guest was awake. “Good sleep?”

He yawned. “Someone was singing… but other than that, I’ve had worse.”

She handed him a mug of tea. “Drink that, we need to talk.”

“O…kay,” Marius said dubiously. “What about?”

“It’s more a continuation of what happened last night.”

His face fell. “So that wasn’t a dream?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“And I’m really a werewolf?”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

He smiled awkwardly. “Well, it’s obviously not _your_ fault. What did you want to talk about?”

“It’s the whole… werewolf thing. You’re going to have to be very careful. No contact with your family, your old friends… it’s too dangerous now. But there are people who can help. Other werewolves…”

“There are others? Here?”

“A pack, actually, though I’ve only met one of them. Cos and I are going to see them today… we thought maybe you’d want to come…”

“It does sound like my best shot.”

~~~

“I don’t like this,” Enjolras said, pacing.

“We’ve been over this, Enj,” Combeferre said with a sigh. “It can’t hurt to talk to them. You heard what Grantaire said about the vampire. Constant isolation is not good for the pack.”

“I still don’t have to _like_ it.”

Combeferre opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it and just shook his head and went to make himself another coffee.

“Courfeyrac!” Enjolras shouted.

A moment later he appeared. “Yes?”

“Have we got the equipment for later?”

“Wooden stakes, freshly whittled, all the garlic I could find, your sword is sharp and I got some of these as well,” he held up a handful of rosaries with crucifixes dangling from them. “I wasn’t sure what would work and what wouldn’t, so I went for all the basics.”

Enjolras nodded tersely. “Good. I hope we will not need any of it.”

~~~

Eponine and Marius got into Eponine’s car (an incongruously yellow VW Beetle), to find that Cosette had already zapped herself into the back seat.

Eponine turned look at her roommate. “Oh, so you can leave the house now?”

“It’s different when you’re with me, it’s just… when I’m on my own, then I can’t.”

“Right. Well, let’s go.”

The address (which Joly had texted to her earlier) turned out to be a surprisingly ordinary, if quite large, house in a terrace near the park. Eponine looked up at it from inside the car. “Well. Here we go...” she said as she got out and headed for the front door, with the others following her.

The door opened before she knocked, and she saw a young man standing there with a rosary in one hand. She grinned at him. “Hey, is Joly in? He’s expecting us. Is that a jet rosary? I haven’t seen one of them for years…” she reached for it and made a show of examining it casually.

He blinked at her in surprise. “But…”

“Crucifixes? Really? You’ve been watching too much TV. And I bet you’re not a churchgoer, either. It’s _belief_ , dumbass, not bits of wood shaped like a cross.”

“Oh,” he said. “Um. I’m Courfeyrac. Come in.”

“Eponine Thenardier,” she said brightly, “It’s a pleasure.”

She walked in, looking around curiously. Cosette followed, dropping a quick curtsey as she passed Courfeyrac. “Cosette,” she said, “It’s so nice to meet you.”

Marius was last. “Um. Hi…” he said awkwardly. Courfeyrac looked at him curiously. “I’m Marius.

“Joly didn’t say there’d be a wolf coming.”

“I was a… late addition.”

“Get inside, then, we’ll sort this out.”

Once they were inside, everyone gathered in the front room, which was now full of the pack, who were trying to look casual and ready to strike at any minute at the same time, Marius, who was nervous, and Cosette, who was quietly shaking her head over the state of the house.

Eponine looked around, wondering which was the Alpha. Then she spotted him, and wondered how anyone would ever mistake him for anything else. “You must be Enjolras… I’m Eponine Thenardier, vampire, originally from Paris… and, to cut to the chase, I mean no harm to anyone here, and I’d like to be able to live peacefully in this town. Also, I have a favour to ask.”

Enjolras frowned. “What?”

She looked back at Marius. “Step forward, kid,” she said. To the others she added, “This is Marius, I only met him yesterday but he’s a werewolf, newly turned as far as I know, and he could really use some guidance with the whole.. wolf… thing. I figured you guys  were best placed to help with that.”

Enjolras studied Marius carefully. “Hmm. We can help. There’s no room for him here, though, he’ll need to stay elsewhere.”

“We’ve got room at ours,” Eponine said quickly, “that’s not a problem.”

“All right, then. I think we’ll be able to… coexist peacefully. Thank you for coming.” He nodded to each of the three, and left the room quickly. Immediately, the rest of the pack relaxed.

Courfeyrac pulled Marius off to one corner, and started asking him about his attack. Eponine saw that and smiled to herself, she was glad that the kid had someone able to help him. Meanwhile, Cosette had found a pretty young werewolf (and yes, pretty was the word, rather than handsome) whose hair was tied back in a ribbon, and he was complaining to her about how _messy_ his packmates were.  And-

“ ‘Ponine!”

Eponine spun around. “ _Grantaire_?” She said incredulously. “ _This_ is the pack you were talking about?”

Grantaire shrugged. “Well, we’ve had a couple new additions since I last saw you, but yeah.”

“I didn’t even know you were in the country!”

“To be fair, I didn’t know _you’d_ left France.”

She winced. “Sorry,” he said, “Sore topic?”

“The usual. Family stuff. That’s actually why I left. We had some differences of opinion regarding my chosen lifestyle, and it was easier for me and Cos to leave.”

“Yeah I remember your family, I don’t blame you.”

“Enough about that,” she said, “Have you got anything to drink around here?”

He looked at her, affronted. “ _Eponine_ , I am shocked. I _always_ have something to drink nearby.”

~~~

Much later that day, the trio returned to their house, all feeling rather happy with the results of the meeting. Cosette was still in raptures over her new friend Jehan, who had promised to come over to look through catalogues and help her get the house properly decorated. And Marius was looking a lot more comfortable in himself, which Eponine figured could only be a good thing.

They got out of the car and started towards the house, but stopped when they saw a shadowy figure lurking near the doorstep. Cosette and Marius looked  at each other nervously, but Eponine recognised the visitor, and strode towards them.

“Montparnasse, what the  hell are you doing here?”

“ ‘Ello, Eponine. Nice house you’ve got here.”

“Answer the questions, ‘Parnasse.”

“He’s getting worried about you, love.” Montparnasse did not need to explain who He was. Eponine knew that he’d come from her sire.

“He knows perfectly well that I don’t want anything to do with him. Remind him of that. And tell him that if I catch _anyone_ from the gang around my house again, I’ll kill them.”

Montparnasse smiled a terrible smile. “Of course, milady,” he said with a mock bow. “Be seein’ you,” he said as he vanished into the night.

“Who was that?” Marius asked.

“Someone I thought I’d never see again,” she said darkly. “We need to get inside the house, _now_.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thenardier appears for the first time, and Cosette reveals some of the history between Eponine and her father. Also, an unexpected guest appears on the housemates' doorstep.
> 
> warning for mention of physical abuse.

_Paris, France – fifteen years ago_

“When was the last time you saw your sister?”

Azelma twirled a strand of her chestnut hair around her finger. “The last time I saw her she was with Montparnasse.”

Thenardier scowled. Before he could speak, he heard footsteps.

“Heeeeey…” Eponine staggered in, one arm around Montparnasse’s shoulders and blood smeared across her face. She dragged herself upright and walked right up to her father. “Am I a real vampire _now_?” she drawled. “You _tyrannical bastard_.”

He looked down at her. “You’re drunk,” he said.

“ _Duh_.”

She wished he would say something. Anything. But he just looked at her, as though he didn’t even recognise her, and walked away.

She scowled and spat in his direction. Azelma touched her shoulder. “You’re  a mess, sis. What did you do?”

“Got drunk.”

“He’s not so-“ Azelma was cut off by her sister’s hand slamming across her mouth.

“ _Don’t_. He is that bad. You know he’s that bad.”

Azelma looked down at the floor, and walked away. Eponine stared after her, turned, and staggered back out. She shoved Montparnasse away when he came near her.

 

_The Present_

Someone was pounding on the front door, and Eponine was cooking and Cosette was in one of her I’m-not-going-near-the-door phases, so it was Marius who opened it.

And it was Marius who practically fell backwards as a tiny girl in a tattered dress launched herself at him, snarling.

“Where’s my sister, dog?” she spat, brushing matted curls out of  her face. “Where’s Eponine?”

Marius yelled, “’Ponine!”, and moments later she was in the hall, dragging the smaller girl off him.

“ _Azelma_?” she said incredulously.

The girl looked from her, to Marius, and back. “Why is there a _dog_ in your _house_?”

“He’s my friend, ‘Zel, and the word is werewolf. I don’t want to hear any of that talk of… _his_ in this house.”

Azelma scowled, but said nothing.

“What are you doing here, ‘Zelma?”

Her sister looked up at her, eyes suddenly brimming with tears. “He threw me out. Got the gang to beat me up and threw me out on the street. Said I wasn’t welcome any more.”

“Do you have any idea why?”

Azelma shook her head. Eponine picked her up – not difficult with her strength – and carried her into the front room. She set her sister down on the couch and perched on the edge. Marius followed, picking up a blanket from the back of a chair and, not knowing what to do, handed it to Eponine. She took it and wrapped it around Azelma.

“What happened, ‘Zelma?” she said quietly. “I mean… I got enough beatings from him myself, but he never liked me… you were his favourite, his shadow. Why’d he turn on you like that?”

Azelma was shaking. She looked up at her sister, eyes wide, and shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said, so softly that Eponine could barely hear her.

Eponine couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead she took her little sister in her arms and held her tightly. Marius, feeling extremely awkward, slipped out of the room quietly and went to find Cosette.

 

~~~

 

Cosette turned out to be in her room, sitting on her bed leafing through one of her mail-order catalogues. The door was open, but Marius knocked anyway.

She looked up and saw him hovering in the doorway. “Hello, Marius,” she said brightly. “Come in, don’t just stand there.”

He moved a few steps closer.

“Is everything all right? I heard someone shouting downstairs,” she prompted.

“Um… Eponine’s sister is here. Zelma, she called her. Uh, it seems like something bad happened, something really bad.”

“Probably something to do with Thenardier, then,” she said. At his confused look, she added, “Their father. He’s a vampire too, but he was their father first. He’s a dangerous man, Marius.”

“You’ve known Eponine for a long time, haven’t you? Did you know him too?”

Cosette fiddled with a strand of hair. “Well, um…”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, I’ll tell you… I just need to work out the right way. I suppose the beginning is always best, right?” she said with a nervous laugh. “See, I.. don’t quite remember my, um, my…”

“…your death?”

She nodded. “Right. Silly, isn’t it? I’ve been.. a ghost for so long, and I don’t remember something that important. What I do know is that for a long time I was living in..  haunting, I suppose… a house in France. And about twenty years ago that house was bought by new owners. There must have been other owners before then, but these were different. They could see me.”

“Eponine and her family?”

She nodded. “The Thenardier gang, yes. They saw that they had a ghost in the house. Thenardier soon figured out that I had difficulty leaving the building, and he decided to use me. He used to say he was lucky to have bought a house that came with a built-in cleaner. As long as I kept the house tidy he treated me as though I wasn’t there. If I didn’t… he threatened to find an exorcist. To have me… removed. That’s pretty much the worst thing you can do to a ghost.”

“But what about the rest of them?”

“Madame, that’s  his wife, she’s almost as bad as he is. The gang mostly ignored me. Eponine was the only one who really acknowledged me. We didn’t get on at first… but we became friends.”

“And Zelma?”

“It’s Azelma, really. She was his shadow, always following him around. But she wasn’t cruel the way he is. What did she say?”

“That he’d thrown her out, and she didn’t know why.”

“Huh,” Cosette said thoughtfully. “I would have thought he’d have said something…”

 

~~~

 

_An Unknown Location, The Same Day_

“So you found the house?”

“I did… sir,” Montparnasse said carefully.

“Anything I should know?”

“There’s a werewolf in the house. Other than that, just her and the ghost.”

Thenardier scowled. “ _Dogs_. The ghost was bad enough, now she has to associate with _dogs_. Well… we can handle that.”

 

~~~

 

Eponine was on her break at work the next day when Joly  sat down at her table.

“Hey,” she said. “How’s Marius doing with his werewolf lessons?”

“He’s coping,” he said. “Look, Eponine…”

She saw his expression and frowned. “What’s up?”

“What do you know about the Thenardier vampires… um, the other ones? Where are they?”

“Joly, what happened, why are you asking me that?”

“We keep an eye on the community around here. There’ve been a lot more vampires in town lately. You know any?”

“My sister’s in town, but she’s in my house with strict orders not to leave.”

“What about someone named Montparnasse?”

She stared at him. “Seriously?”

“Very.”  

“He works for my fa- for Thenardier. Or he used to, I’m not really up to date. And I have no idea why he’s here.”

Joly looked at her for a long moment. “OK,” he said eventually. “I’ll see you later, all right?”

She smiled broadly. “Yeah, OK.” Her smile vanished the moment he left.


End file.
